


Monster

by SecondToTheRight



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, POV Third Person Plural, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondToTheRight/pseuds/SecondToTheRight
Summary: Four times Karolina proves she’s not a monster and the one time Nico reminds her.Or, snapshots of Karolina and Nico's relationship through the years.





	Monster

Nico thought Karolina was a doll the first time she met her. With blonde hair and blue eyes matching the Barbies Amy would occasionally force Nico to play with, all Karolina needed was a dream house and an endless supply of shoes to complete her playset. Given how Nico would see the girl each week, sometimes each day, wearing an outfit more colorful than the last, she felt her suspicions were valid.

Although her parents told her that she and Karolina were the same age—seven and three quarters—Nico doubted it. The girl could barely reach Nico’s shoulders. Amy told her once that she overheard the Deans talking to the Yorkes about Karolina’s size. They were worried that she wasn’t growing right. Another reason why Karolina could be a doll: once Nico grew up, she would probably be able to fit the girl in her pocket.

But Karolina wasn’t a doll.

Dolls didn’t speak and Karolina was loud. Very loud.

“Don’t hurt him!”

Karolina’s voice cut through the chatter of the other kids, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nico and the others were crowded around a small patch of grass in the backyard of the Minoru household, their heads practically keeping out all of the ruthless sun of a Los Angeles summer day as they leaned over what used to be a bird in flight. Chase had accidentally hit it with a tennis ball and down the bird went.

“Is it dead?” asked Alex.

“Oh god,” moaned Gert. “You killed it, Chase!”

“No, I didn’t!” Chase yelled, which only made Gert’s breathing pick up speed.

“You’re in so much trouble,” Nico said, laughing.

“Let me see!” Karolina could be heard screaming behind them.

“Okay,” said Amy, looking worriedly over at Gert. “I’m getting Dad.”

“Wait, will he tell my dad?” asked Chase, his eyes growing big in fear.

Before Amy could answer, Karolina squeezed between her and Alex, finally shouldering her way through. She gasped at the sight of the bird, falling to her knees next to it. One of its wings was unnaturally jutting upward, its chest rising and falling as quickly as its eyes moved, darting in every direction. Nico groaned when she noticed the tears starting to gather in Karolina’s eyes. They _all_ would be in trouble if Karolina started to cry.

“He’s terrified,” Karolina whispered, gently taking the bird in her hands.

“Karolina, don’t! You don’t know what germs it has,” Gert said. She backed away from Karolina and the bird, already acting like the girl was infected by some incurable disease. 

“We have to help him,” Karolina said to Nico, her voice firm despite the tears starting to spill over.

Nico hated when she did that—looked at Nico like she was some kind of superhero, like she could do anything.

“Kids?”

In unison, everyone turned around, blocking Karolina and the bird from view. Robert Minoru, the chosen PRIDE babysitter of the week, was walking towards them with a tray of lemonade in one hand, young Molly holding the other. His eyes locked with each of theirs, picking up on their rising panic and missing member.

“What’s up?” he asked slowly.

“Nothing, Mr. Minoru,” said Gert, too quick and high-pitched to sound convincing.

“Where’s Karolina?” Robert asked gently, though he looked at Amy expectantly.

“Dad,” Amy began.

“We’re playing hide and seek,” said Alex, cutting her off. “Karolina’s really good.”

“So good, Mr. M,” echoed Chase, though his gaze immediately dropped to his feet when Robert looked his way.

“Is that so,” Robert said before turning to Nico, angling himself so his height would allow him to look past Nico’s shoulders to where the blonde in question was crouching, trying to make herself smaller than she already was. 

“What do you have there, Karolina?” He asked, stepping toward the pair.

“Nothing, Dad,” Nico replied.

“Step aside, Nico,” Robert said, voice still soft but eyes now serious. 

Nico heard a whimper behind her and swallowed. Karolina was going to get her grounded. She looked at her dad defiantly, her hands turning into fists as she puffed out her chest.

“No,” she said.

Robert couldn’t help but laugh in surprise.

“Nico,” he started but stopped at the sound of flapping wings.

The kids turned around in time to see the bird once held by Karolina, once grounded by a broken wing, taking flight, quickly becoming a speck in the clear sky. Nico looked to Karolina, confused, but Karolina just smiled wide, eyes bright.

“Bye, Mr. Bird,” Karolina said with a wave.

The rest were silent, baffled.

Except Molly, who tugged on Robert’s hand.

“Can I have lemonade now?” she asked, bringing everyone’s attention away from the sky.

No one spoke about the bird again. Most probably forgot. When you’re that young, the inexplicable is either ignored or accepted as the way things are. But Nico didn’t forget. For a while, she even thought Karolina was an angel in disguise. So when she saw Karolina glow for the first time, years later, a small part of her wasn’t surprised.

*

Nico couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face her mom, not after this. She didn’t even like tennis, nor did she have a talent for it, which her mom always made abundantly clear. But she did it for Amy—always for Amy. Amy asked her to play, trusting no one else to be her doubles partner. So Nico did and now she had cost her sister the tournament. Their opponents found her out, sensed her weakness, knew her backhand was shaky, that she was slow, and zeroed in. No matter what Amy did to even the score, they used Nico to weigh her down.

Nico slammed her hand against the sink of the country club bathroom she had locked herself in. Her eyes stung with humiliating tears, frustrating tears, tears she didn’t want or deserved to have. Nico messed up and made Amy suffer the consequences.

She heard a knock at the door. 

“Occupied,” she said, turning on the faucet, hoping the sound of running water would be enough to send the potential intruder a message: she wanted privacy.

They knocked again.

“Go away, Amy,” she said, now sure it was the one person who cared enough to ignore her wishes.

She knew Amy wouldn’t be mad. Disappointed, maybe, but not with Nico. Probably with herself, which would only make Nico feel worse. Amy would want to comfort her. She had already tried when the match ended—before Nico bolted.

Another knock brought her back to the present, quickly followed by a voice. 

“It’s not Amy.”

The voice was tentative, but warm. All the emotions and thoughts rushing through Nico came to a halt at the sound of it. With three words, the voice allowed Nico to breathe. She wobbled to the door, exhaustion finally making itself felt through her legs.

Nico opened the door slowly, as if she was scared the world would come crashing in. She didn’t need to look up to see Karolina, to know her brows were furrowed, her lips frowning, concern evident in her eyes.  

“You okay?” Karolina asked.

Nico just shrugged, still not lifting her head. Her eyes were stinging again, her throat closing up. She didn’t trust herself to speak, but Karolina didn’t ask anything else. Instead, she closed the space between them, wrapping her arms around Nico’s smaller frame, resting her head on Nico’s.

Were it any other day, Nico would marvel at the height difference. She still remembered a time when she was the tall one, when Karolina was absurdly tiny. But then Nico turned nine and stopped growing. By eleven, Karolina caught up to her and now at thirteen, Karolina still wasn’t done.

“You were amazing out there,” Karolina whispered. 

That did it. Nico sank into her, pressing her face against Karolina’s neck as the tears began to fall. For a while, it felt like they wouldn’t stop. When they finally did, Karolina still held on and Nico was grateful. Karolina always knew what Nico needed.

“You smell,” Karolina said, arms tightening around Nico.

Nico let out a wet laugh, the weight on her chest bearable again.

* 

Nico’s phone was dead. Dead phone meant no music, which meant listening to high school teenagers be ridiculous—

“And then her dad walked in and basically threw me out of their house. I had to walk home in my boxers.”

“Did you see Spider-Man’s latest video? Why does New York get all the fun?”

“I really wanna lose three pounds.”

“Okay, but can we all agree Captain America could still get it?”

“Isn’t he, like, ninety years old?”

“That’s ninety years young, show some respect!” 

—weren’t libraries supposed to be quiet? 

Nico moved through the aisles of books, searching for some oasis of isolation, but found the opposite. Between bookcases, Eiffel and her mindless flock had trapped their latest target—a freshman with arms so bony, it was a miracle she could carry all the textbooks she hugged tightly to her chest.

“Listen, you prepubescent, monobrowed dweeb,” Eiffel said, every one of her insults practically lashing the girl, making her flinch and collapse more into herself.

“All we need is for you to get a few answers wrong so Mr. Llanos is forced to grade on a curve. You do that and we’re good,” Eiffel said, stepping forward, reaching out to lightly tap the girl’s cheek. “ _Comprende_?”

A small, instinctual part of Nico wanted to make herself known the moment Eiffel raised her hand, but the rest of her told her to stay out of it. Because Nico was tired. Tired of hormonal kids whose biggest worries were term papers and school gossip, tired of sleeping in a house with parents that want to be anywhere but home, tired of living in a world where Amy no longer existed—a world that had no trouble moving on without her.

So, Nico watched from the sidelines as the freshman surprised everyone, including herself, by talking back.

“If the lacrosse players want to pass Spanish, why don’t they actually try?” said the girl, finally looking Eiffel in the eye.

After a beat, Eiffel laughed, which made the girls behind her join nervously. She then smacked the girl’s books to the ground, a slam echoing through the library halls as each one hit the floor. Nico should have done something, anything, after that, but didn’t. Couldn’t, because before she could react, a familiar blonde was already entering the scene from the other end of the bookcases. Nico was surprised by the evident anger on Karolina’s face, but also relieved. Anything was better than that fake smile Karolina always wore. Nico ignored Karolina for a lot of reasons, but that smile was the most uncomfortable.

“Leave her alone, Eiffel,” Karolina said, forcing herself between Eiffel and the freshman.

“Careful, dweeb. Looks like the Gibborim’s got their perfect church girl searching for new recruits,” Eiffel said to the freshman no longer in view.

“Back off,” Karolina warned.

“And what are you going to do if I don’t?” asked Eiffel, tilting her head up at Karolina, not the least bit concerned. “Kiss me?” 

Nico couldn’t see Karolina’s face, but Eiffel’s smug expression and Karolina’s silence marked the former’s victory. The brunette snapped her fingers, signaling to her posse that it was time to go, leaving Karolina, the freshman, and the unseen Nico behind.

Karolina turned to the girl, who was on the floor gathering her things. She crouched down to help, softly asking, “Are you alright?” 

“Leave me alone, brainwashed freak!” The girl yelled, either forgetting or no longer caring about library etiquette. She pushed herself off the floor, abandoning the books as she rushed past Karolina, toward and then away from Nico. 

Karolina’s eyes followed her but stopped at Nico, widening in surprise. In them, Nico saw the confusion and the hurt. But then they were gone, masked over by a watery, careful smile that Nico hated more than the pain it tried to hide. It made Karolina ugly, which Nico once thought was impossible. It reminded Nico of how messed up everything was, of how the world may have moved on but Nico and Karolina hadn’t. Couldn’t.

Yet, here was Karolina trying to make everything okay, forcing herself to smile that smile even if it ruined her. And it all became too much for Nico. Reciprocating that smile with a fakeness of her own would mean allowing Karolina back into her life, which would eventually lead to confronting that fakeness because both of them knew the other too well and would not be able to accept the façade for long.

To accept Karolina would mean to accept the world as it is, and Nico wasn’t ready.

So she ran away, without even a glance back. 

* 

Karolina didn’t know Nico was watching. She probably didn’t even realize just how bright she was glowing, lost in the melody of the boombox’s music as she swayed in the open space of the Hostel’s foyer. For once, she wasn’t going to think about the very real possibility that she would have to kill her own family in order to save the world, or that said family had held her captive in a tube—trapped in a fantasy-turned-nightmare—for weeks. She refused to think about how her memories had almost been wiped, nor about how tempting of an offer the wiping of her memories truly was. To forget everything, to blissfully accept whatever she was told, would make everything so easy, which made picking another path that much harder.

The word easy often made her think of Xavin. At once completely innocent and terrifying, Xavin proposed a simple solution to the madness that her life had become. Their love would bring peace, they said. It would be revered by hopeless romantics and feared by the powerful. Their union was greater than the two of them. Higher forces were at play, demanding they be together. Why fight it when it’s the only outcome? Just give in, they would all but say with pleading eyes that mean no harm.

But choosing Xavin wouldn’t be easy. In fact, it would be impossible. To choose Xavin would mean to not choose Nico, and Karolina would always choose Nico. Even if it doomed the world, even if it damned the universe to a never-ending war, even if it meant the complete annihilation of her people.

Karolina would always choose Nico and that terrified her.

So she didn’t think about it. Instead, she shut her eyes and let Billie Holiday’s voice guide her through the air, let it fill her with notes of serenity, melancholy, and want…

… That’s how Nico found her.

Leslie was resting upstairs like Karolina was supposed to be, while everyone else had gone out looking for food, money, or both. Nico had been the first to arrive back. Deciding against making herself known, she set a box of stale croissants on a nearby table and leaned against a wall, just staring at Karolina in awe, mesmerized. For a moment, she wished she could join her. Have Karolina wrap her tight and take her high, take her to whatever headspace she was in. But Nico was scared.

What if Karolina wanted someone else? 

“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” said a voice behind her.

Nico didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Xavin’s timing. The alien appeared to have had a more successful run than her based on the aroma of the batches of packaged food they held. Any other time, Nico would have felt incompetent, threatened, and most definitely annoyed. But that night, she didn’t care, too busy enraptured by the lights of the angel in front of them.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Sensational.”

* 

Karolina’s hands couldn’t stop shaking. People were screaming at her, yelling things that refused to sound like anything other than noise. All the voices were melding into one screeching ring in her ears, as unbearable as the sight before her. She didn’t know what she did or how she did it, but Jonah was gone for good. In his place laid an unconscious Victor Stein, injured but alive.

Both Victor and Karolina had felt Jonah go. He had almost taken them with him, but all that remained were the stings of multiple-degree burns. For Victor, they were all over. For Karolina, they were just on her palms. A reminder of what she had done.

Her father. She had murdered her own father. The man who took the lives of countless children without pause. The man who dealt with anyone that got in his way. The man who killed Amy.

A monster.

And she was no different.

That’s why the last thing he did was smile at her. He didn’t have to say it, but he was proud. Angry at her rebellion, sure. But proud of what she had become: someone like him. Just like him.

She looked at the chaos around her, searching. She knew what to do, what needed to be done to end this. When her eyes finally landed on Dale Yorkes, on the pistol he was holding, filled with bullets of poison strong enough to extinguish the brightest light within her, she began to move. He hadn’t noticed her, shooting at the other monsters—her siblings. All she had to do was get to him, get that pistol, aim, and fire. Then, it would all be over.

However, she didn’t get far.

One second, she was soaring towards Dale. The next, she was grounded, trapped in a bubble of air. She shot beams of light at the invisible walls, but they wouldn’t break. She switched tactics, using her shoulders, ramming against a resistant nothing. When that didn’t work, she used her hands, her fists.

Karolina screamed in frustration. That’s when she noticed the silence. The bubble had shut the world out completely. All she could hear were her owns grunts and gasps. She was crying—when had that started? Her breathing was getting shorter, faster. Her strength was depleting, her vision blurring as the tears became uncontrollable.

She _killed_ her father.

Arms wrapped around her from behind, grasping her forearms and putting a stop to her useless punches.

“Don’t, Karolina… Please don’t.”

Nico.

Karolina crumpled to the tiled floor of the warehouse-turned-PRIDE lab. Nico pulled her closer, forcing her to look away from the battle around them, to only look at her. Her dark eyes were gentle, unlike her bruising grip.

“You’re not him,” Nico said slowly, clearly, repeating it again and again until it sunk in, until Karolina’s breathing evened out.

“But I am,” Karolina argued, showing Nico her bloody palms.

She wanted Nico to flinch at the sight, to turn away in disgust, to prove what Karolina already knew: there was no beauty in what she was. Instead, Nico tenderly took her hands and pressed her lips against them.

“No, you’re not,” she said once she finished.

“Nico,” Karolina’s voice cracked at her name, “I have to do this. I can’t-”

“Hey,” Nico interrupted. She let out a shaky breath, resting her forehead on Karolina’s. “No more leaving each other, remember? Wherever you go, I go.”

Nico didn’t say that to save Karolina. Nor was she lying. Had Karolina gone through with her plan, Nico would have joined her. But her words _did_ save Karolina. Because a monster wouldn’t care about who they brought down with them, even if it was the love of their life.

And Karolina Dean was no monster.

**Author's Note:**

> This just had to come out... so, here is it! Let me know if the change in POV was confusing. I was trying something new. Also, part of me wanted to end it with Nico's last line but thought that would be too dark. Let me know if I was right, or if I should have embraced the darkness. It wasn't planned but that was just how the story decided to go. Anyways, we better get a season three!
> 
> Please, please, please comment! I want to improve so constructive criticism is encouraged, but a "hi" is good too! There are not enough people in my real life to spazz with about Deanoru, so feel free to do that too! :D


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